Redlands, California—ESRI, the world leader in geographic information system (GIS) technology, announces that Guenther Pichler has joined the company as business development manager for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) Group.

Pichler has more than 22 years of experience in the GIS industry and comes to ESRI from the Open Geospatial Consortium (Europe) Limited (OGCE), the European arm of the OGC, where he served as director of business development. In that role, he contributed to establishing the European organization as well as running its day-to-day business.

"We are delighted that Guenther has joined ESRI," says Jack Dangermond, ESRI president. "His past work experience with the European Union and the European Commission and his knowledge of open standards will help ESRI better understand European interoperability needs and requirements."

In his business development manager role at ESRI, Pichler’s primary responsibility is to strengthen ESRI’s relationships with the European Union and the European Commission. He will also be ESRI’s European representative to the OGC.

"I am looking forward to facing these new challenges at ESRI," says Pichler. "My efforts will concentrate on emphasizing ESRI’s clear commitment to open standards and underpinning the importance of interoperability in Europe."

Pichler holds a Master of Science (MS) degree with Honors in mathematics and IT from the Technical University of Graz, Austria.